None, not even the most hardcore of Batman or DC Comics fans would have believed that a show that takes place in Gotham without Batman in the forefront would have gained the ratings that Fox’s Gotham gained over its time on air. Its brilliant cast of villains takes center stage in a city of corruption and despair.
A city that is responsible for the outward spread of evil it has spawned over decades of decadence. Without a hero in sight, Jim Gordon takes charge, seeking justice in a city where every cop is on someone’s payroll. While the show maintains a certain level of intrigue with its many characters, it can be noted that some needed more screen time than they received and some received too much.
Jason Skolimski
Jason Skolimski, also known as the serial killer nicknamed The Ogre, was a suave gentleman, who did not need to abduct his victims since they willingly came with him. He would attract his prey with his dashing good looks and charming personality only to bring them back to his place and refuse to let them leave. Killing his victim when she would try to escape his grasp.
Upon seducing Barbara Kean, he takes his obsession to a whole new level, torturing her to the point of insanity and then forcing her to kill her parents.
Kristin Kringle
Kringle was the record’s keeper at Gotham City Police Department and was the first love of Edward Nygma. Being always attracted to the bad boy, Kringle avoided Nygma’s advances, preferring her abusive cop boyfriend instead.
However, after Nygma learns that she is being physically abused, he murders her boyfriend and hides the body. Presenting himself as the new and improved, confident Nygma, Kringle finally relents to his advances only to learn that Nygma had murdered her boyfriend. She confronts Nygma, who admits to the crime. When she attempts to turn him in, he accidentally murders her.
Jimmy Saviano
Saviano was a powerful figure in the Falcone crime family and a childhood friend of Butch Gilzean. A brazen man by nature, Saviano wasn’t even afraid to speak his opinion to Falcone himself.
Though it was this confidence that eventually led to his downfall when he refused to join a coup with Fish Mooney to overthrow Falcone, stating that he had seniority and that if anyone was going to take Falcone’s place it was going to be him. After trying to get his old friend Butch to join his side, Butch decided to put a bullet in his head.
Sal Maroni
Maroni’s rivalry with Carmine Falcone put him at center stage of the gang wars taking place in Gotham. Maroni was a violent, arrogant man with a quick temper. He never gave anyone whether they were friend or foe respect. Creating subservient loyalty from his minions only through fear, always expecting them to bend over backward for him.
His ferocious demeanor and antagonistic approach when dealing with those he deemed his lesser was eventually what led to his demise. After Fish Mooney grew tired of listening to Maroni berate her, she killed him, taking over his crime organization.
Fish Mooney
Possibly the single most ambitious villain in Gotham. Mooney, who was part of the Falcone crime family, biding her time against Carmine Falcone, waiting for the moment he became weak enough to take him out. Her initial coup failed miserably, and she was eventually killed by her former umbrella holder Oswald Cobblepot.
Though, her story didn’t end there, as she was resurrected by Hugo Strange, gaining superpowers upon her rebirth. Even with her newfound powers, Mooney was again killed, this time by Jim Gordon when she tried to take over Gotham City for herself.
Jervis Tetch
Tetch, who was later known as The Mad Hatter, was a deranged criminal hypnotist who had an unnatural obsession with his sister. Mentally and physically abusing her throughout her childhood, his sister, Alice, wanted nothing to do with him but Tetch was unrelenting.
His stalking eventually got his sister accidentally killed. A death he blamed on James Gordon, who was trying to help her. Tetch could be said to be Gordon’s Joker since Tetch was obsessed with driving Gordon mad by making him choose innocents to kill in a sadistic game of cat and mouse.
Bridgit Pike
Unlike most of the villains that appeared in Gotham, Bridgit wasn’t born sadistic, it was only after years of torture by her criminal brothers that she succumbed to madness. During one of the robberies she was forced to undertake by her brothers, she was burned, causing her to create a fire-resistant suit.
After murdering her abusive brothers, Bridgit used her new suit with a built-in flamethrower to rob and wreak havoc on Gotham, bringing her to the attention of Jim Gordon who was clever enough to foil her plans each encounter.
Ivy Pepper
The villain later known as Poison Ivy was a strange but somewhat harmless girl who after the death of her parents was orphaned and later temporarily taken in by Jim Gordon. Ivy was originally a teenager before being aged prematurely to that of an adult by Marv, a former experiment of Strange. Ivy is deeply loyal to her friend Selina Kyle who was the only person to ever truly care about her.
Yet, after her mutation, Ivy’s love for plants took an ominous turn, as she willingly puts the lives of plants above that of humans, even Selina’s.
Hugo Strange
The former Chief of Psychiatry and director at Arkham Asylum, Hugo Strange was a twisted scientist, using his patients at Indian Hills as test subjects on behalf of The Court of Owls and League of Shadows. Hugo’s intellect is without equal, as he has literally been able to bring people back from the dead.
If his genius-level intelligence doesn’t make him a sizable threat already, then his ability as a master tactician makes him all the more lethal. After his experiments broke free from him, they caused unrivaled chaos to Gotham.
Barbara Kean
The ex-fiance to Jim Gordon, Kean’s life was torn asunder after Gordon began work for the Gotham Police Department. Kean never felt Gordon included her in his life, so she left him. She then began to date Jason Skolimski, who kidnapped and tortured her until she had a psychotic breakdown.
Over the course of the next few years, Kean turned to a life of crime, having dealings with all the criminal masterminds in Gotham at the time. However, after becoming pregnant with Gordon’s child, she reclaimed her life, leaving her criminal past behind.
